Cong names 17 K’taka candidates, ministers’ children enter fray

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The Congress on Thursday named 56 more candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections of whom 17 are for Karnataka.

The Grand Old Party has now named 24 candidates for the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

As many as five children of state ministers made the cut as Congress found it difficult to convince the Cabinet members themselves to fight the polls.

Notable among the names was Bengaluru South candidate and former MLA Sowmya Reddy, the daughter of Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy.

She’ll be taking on Hindutva poster boy and incumbent BJP MP Tejasvi Surya. Priyanka, the daughter of Public Works Minister Satish Jarkiholi, will be contesting from Chikkodi against saffron party MP Annasaheb Jolle.

Minister for Child and Women Development Laxmi Hebbalkar also got her way as her son Mrinal will be contesting from Belagavi, the other Lok Sabha seat in the district.

The sitting Belagavi MP is Mangala Angadi but former chief minister Jagadish Shettar's name is also doing the rounds for the seat.

Sagar, the son of Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre, is being fielded from Bidar against Union Minister Bhagwant Khuba. Minister for Agricultural Marketing Shivanand Patil’s daughter Samyukta will be fielded from Bagalkote against BJP MP PC Gaddigoudar.

Prabha Mallikarjun, the wife of Horticulture Minister SS Mallikarjun and daughter-in-law of veteran MLA Shamanur Shivashankarappa will contest from Davangere.

Mansoor Khan, the son of former Union Minister Rahman Khan will be taking on PC Mohan in Bengaluru Central.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee working president BN BN Chandrappa will contest from Chitradurga, which is reserved for Scheduled Castes.

Koppal MLA Raghavendra Hitnal will be contesting from the Koppal Lok Sabha seat. He is the only incumbent lawmaker from the Congress to agree to contest general elections.

MV Rajeev Gowda, the Vice-Chairman of Karnataka State Policy and Planning Commission, will take on Shobha Karandlaje in Bengaluru North.

The other candidates are G Kumar Naik from Raichur, which is reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST), Vinod Asooti from Dharwad against Union Minister Prahlad Joshi, former Khanapur MLA Anjali Nimbalkar from Uttara Kannada, former Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes (KSCBC) chairman K Jayaprakash Hegde from Udupi-Chikkamagaluru, Padmaraj from Dakshina Kannada and party spokesperson M Lakshman from Mysuru-Kodagu.

Kharge son-in-law gets Kalaburagi The list was headlined by the announcement of Radhakrishna Doddamani, the son-in-law of All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge, as the candidate from Kalaburagi, which is reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs).

Kalaburagi, which had been the stronghold of Kharge, was captured by BJP’s Umesh Jadhav in 2019. The saffron party had won 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state back then, leaving a seat each to allies Congress and JD(S).

The Grand Old Party is yet to name candidates for four seats namely Chamarajanagara, Kolar, Chikkaballapura and Ballari. Cong names 17 K’taka candidates, ministers’ children enter fray